Sri Lanka Cricket Captain Angelo Mathews confirmed the opening pair for the first ODI against Zimbabwe tomorrow (30th June) at Galle International Cricket Stadium.
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“Danushka and Dickwella will open the batting because we don’t want to meddle with the batting order too much so unfortunately Upul will have to drop down to the middle order so Upul and myself will be playing in the middle order.” Mathews said.
In the past 50 encounters between these two countries, Zimbabwe has never beaten Sri Lanka in an ODI in Sri Lanka and so are looking to make history this time around as they are here for a bilateral series after 16 years. Last year during Sri Lanka’s tour to Zimbabwe, the visitors comprehensively clinched the tri-series which involved West Indies as well.
“We don’t want to take them, Zimbabweans lightly or be complacent. If we can win 5-0, well obviously we are thinking too far ahead but we just want to take one game at a time. The outcome of a 5-0 would be ideal but we need to play good cricket to beat Zimbabwe. “Mathews further stated.
“මගේ උපරිමය රට වෙනුවෙන් ඉටු කරනවා” – වනිඳු
ප්රථම වරට ජාත්යන්තර වරම් දිනා ගන්නට අපේක්ෂා කරන 19 හැවිරිදි පා දඟපන්දු යවන ක්රීඩක වනිඳු හසරංග..
With only 6 batsmen in the 14-man squad, Mathews pointed giving enough opportunities and chances for them to stabilize themselves which will do a world of good in the long-run for Sri Lanka Cricket.
“Consistency is something we are looking at. During the Champions Trophy we did not meddle with the batting order too much because we don’t want to experiment too much in batting.” Mathews mentioned to the journalists. “All the 6 batsmen named for this game played that tournament so we will try and go with at least 6 to 8 batsmen for the next few months. Obviously there will be one or two changes depending on injuries and form. “
Dushmantha Chameera who has successfully recovered from a back injury will add extra pace to the Lankan pace battery while they have spinners in every style, right arm off-spin, left-arm leg-spin, left-arm chinaman and right-arm leg-spin to choose from tomorrow for the opening game of the five-match ODI series.
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“When it comes to the bowlers, we want to manage the workload of the fast bowlers and definitely the spinners cannot play continuously, so the trainer and management are coming up with a plan for that. We will take a call on the playing XI after looking at the pitch tomorrow morning but for now all 14 members in the squad have a great chance of playing.” Mathews said.
Fielding has been Sri Lankan cricket’s weakest area for several years now and a couple of dropped catches in the Champions Trophy sparked many allegations towards the islanders. Mathews promised to improve that aspect of the game, “Fielding is an individual thing as well and we work a lot. If you take a look at the last two training sessions, the boys have been sweating it a lot with regards to fielding because we give very much importance to fielding as well. Odd one or two catches will be dropped in the future because no one goes to a game thinking to drop a catch but unfortunately we do mistakes yet we are trying to minimize the mistakes by working hard.“ He said.
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